From: Kieran Cleary <kcleary@jb.man.ac.uk>
Subject: (whorl) 'Tis all in pieces [SPOILERS]
Date: Thu, 8 Feb 2001 11:46:25 +0000 (GMT)


...all coherence gone. 

Nothing very sensible to say until a re-read. I'm delighted, confused and
a little disappointed by the Urth sections. Those of us who thought that
the price of the Green Man's future was a little high may think again
after witnessing the rotting, Boschian charnel house of Urth through the
eyes of Hoof and the words of Horn/Silk. Wonderful/Terrible to glimpse
Urth through a narrator other than Severian. The true horror of the
Matachin Tower. But I expected something
more to come of a meeting between Severian and Silk than an inspiration to
write tBotNS. (Although I do like the suggestion that Severian though
Silk was Malrubius). And the business about Cilinia returning to Urth to
die was just a little thin. Surely she could have forced Oreb to kill
himself if all she wanted was that kind of release. I'm sure I'll
reappraise, but that's how it seems on a first reading. 

Of course the speculation is over regarding the Green=Lune hypothesis (of
which I was an avid exponent). Silk suggesting to Jugano that he could
point out the Red Sun from the roof pretty much nails it. It seems that
the Mother and Great Scylla are of the same species. What's the untold
story here? I remember the legend of Great Scylla's origin from
tBotNS: that woman and her bag of beans; but I get the feeling that
there's something about Typhon's choice of Blue as a destination that we
don't know. I never did understand the Mother's motivations for
sending Seawrack to Horn either.

Kieran C.


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